Watching them last night trashing Tsuen Wan.
Where 17 years ago we opened our third WSI centre, which was immediately successful. Our customers were young folks just like the rioters last night. They were so happy we’d opened because he’d seen how lovely our centres in Wanchai and Jordan were and wanted their local. We gave it them and they came in droves. To study and improve their lives.
So I got to know Tsuen Wan pretty well, as I explored it to find our space (we need 10,000 sq ft).
It’s a working class area. As are all the areas protesters are targeting: Shatin, Wong Tai Sin, Tai Wai, Mongkok. So they’re hitting working class the hardest, their small businesses, shops and Tai Pai Dongs, the hardest. We see old folks, bewildered, wondering where they’re going to buy their food.
Had we been facing then what we’re seeing now, we’d have been bankrupted. And so we can’t help thinking of many families who must be facing bankruptcy today. But the protesters don’t care. We know this because we talk to them. They just don’t care. They are unmoved. So hysterically engrossed are they in their own fantasy of hero-hood. Families with decades running their small business, now ruined? That’s just a price to pay, say the protesters. Pay for what? we ask them.
They answer: the Five Demands (五大诉权). And “not one less!” (缺一不可). But they don’t know what they are; at most they can name just one — an independent police investigation. And we say the government has one going and they sputter, not the same! (And Jing and I recall that “you can’t talk with logic out of a position that was reached without logic”). They say France will come to their aid. They say things were freer under the Brits. They say China is interfering. When we ask “where and how?” they can only think of the “dancing aunties” (大妈) in Tung Chung. Oh… and that Beijing has a plan to swamp Hong Kong with mainlanders and to force Hongkongers into the Greater Bay Area.
Do I need to say that all this is nonsense? Very well, I’ll say it: it’s hysterical nonsense.
And Jing and I agree that it’s bigoted. It would be racist, except that it’s one race, the Han. Bit they hate mainlanders. They call them locusts, in Chinese “Zhina Ren” (支那人), which is an imperial Japanese (1930s) racist term for Chinese. Which, by the way, is 中国人, Chinese. Zhina Ren is a bit like nigger, kike, dago. Very nasty. That’s what these “freedom and democracy” fighters have been spewing.
And for this bigotry, for this nasty racism, they are trashing our beloved working class Tsuen Wan. With the full on applause of the western media and politicians. It brings tears to our eyes.
ADDED: and not just Tsuen Wan. Today the whole of the subway system is shut down. First time ever.
Where 17 years ago we opened our third WSI centre, which was immediately successful. Our customers were young folks just like the rioters last night. They were so happy we’d opened because he’d seen how lovely our centres in Wanchai and Jordan were and wanted their local. We gave it them and they came in droves. To study and improve their lives.
So I got to know Tsuen Wan pretty well, as I explored it to find our space (we need 10,000 sq ft).
It’s a working class area. As are all the areas protesters are targeting: Shatin, Wong Tai Sin, Tai Wai, Mongkok. So they’re hitting working class the hardest, their small businesses, shops and Tai Pai Dongs, the hardest. We see old folks, bewildered, wondering where they’re going to buy their food.
Had we been facing then what we’re seeing now, we’d have been bankrupted. And so we can’t help thinking of many families who must be facing bankruptcy today. But the protesters don’t care. We know this because we talk to them. They just don’t care. They are unmoved. So hysterically engrossed are they in their own fantasy of hero-hood. Families with decades running their small business, now ruined? That’s just a price to pay, say the protesters. Pay for what? we ask them.
They answer: the Five Demands (五大诉权). And “not one less!” (缺一不可). But they don’t know what they are; at most they can name just one — an independent police investigation. And we say the government has one going and they sputter, not the same! (And Jing and I recall that “you can’t talk with logic out of a position that was reached without logic”). They say France will come to their aid. They say things were freer under the Brits. They say China is interfering. When we ask “where and how?” they can only think of the “dancing aunties” (大妈) in Tung Chung. Oh… and that Beijing has a plan to swamp Hong Kong with mainlanders and to force Hongkongers into the Greater Bay Area.
Do I need to say that all this is nonsense? Very well, I’ll say it: it’s hysterical nonsense.
And Jing and I agree that it’s bigoted. It would be racist, except that it’s one race, the Han. Bit they hate mainlanders. They call them locusts, in Chinese “Zhina Ren” (支那人), which is an imperial Japanese (1930s) racist term for Chinese. Which, by the way, is 中国人, Chinese. Zhina Ren is a bit like nigger, kike, dago. Very nasty. That’s what these “freedom and democracy” fighters have been spewing.
And for this bigotry, for this nasty racism, they are trashing our beloved working class Tsuen Wan. With the full on applause of the western media and politicians. It brings tears to our eyes.
ADDED: and not just Tsuen Wan. Today the whole of the subway system is shut down. First time ever.
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| Fighting for “freedom and democracy” in Tsuen Wan |
The Bank of China will survive. But what of the “mom and pop” shops? The businesses like ours, providing services people want. Ruined.
